Thursday, March 01, 2012
6 Tips for Effective Participation in Meetings
Ian's Messy Desk: Yesterday, I posted some tips for running effective meetings. What happens when you’re on the other side of the table? How can you ensure you are getting the most out of meetings you attend?
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7 comments:
These suggestions I feel are all useful ones, and some are even common sense. I'm not sure if there's always something people can do if they feel like they don't actually need to be in attendance for a meeting. In mandatory attendance meetings, I feel that if someone considers themselves not necessary to be present and decide not to attend, it can lead others to do the same. I strongly agree with the "Be prepared with your contribution" section. It's so awkward in a production meeting (at least it was in my high school ones) when a designer has no idea what to talk about or is completely unprepared.
The biggest problem I've run into in meetings is when people just don't pay attention to each other (which is the fourth item on this list). I haven't had many meetings in the CMU setting, but I'd say that at this level of instruction in theatre, I think we should probably all be interested enough in what's being said to actually devote our full attention to each other. It's really a win/win situation, because if everyone pays attention, the meetings gets out infinitely quicker than if people do not.
These tips are all simple, straight-forward, and easy to implement. Some of them seem like they should be common sense, but I guess they aren't. This is a good reminder of how easy it is to get wrapped up in yourself and to not take advantage of the time in meetings when you have everyone involved in a certain project or a certain aspect of a project in the same room. We shouldn't have to be reminded to listen or to pay attention, but I know that it is very easy to get distracted or too caught up in your own thoughts or problems. I know that I have issues with sometimes not listening carefully enough or being too anxious to get out what I have to say. These straightforward tips are great examples of the basic types of rules/guidelines that we can all use to guide all of our professional (and personal) actions.
I think the most important tips in this article are to pay attention and to be courteous. I think many people come into meetings with the mindset that their job is to get people to agree with their opinion. Frequently, meetings are used by people to show how smart, relevant, or competent they are, and that is just counterproductive when meetings turn in to arguments for whose particular idea is the best. I believe that the product of a fruitful meeting is a synthesis of the various participants ideas, which is impossible to achieve when people are only there to defend their own ideas.
I'm not sure if I agree with the "attend only if needed" suggestion. I agree that talking to be heard is a negative thing, but if I had the opportunity to attend a production meeting, I would absolutely go, even though I am definitely not needed, because it would be interesting and I would learn a lot. I would probably just stay silent though, unlike the people the author is talking about. Maybe "attend only if needed" should be "don't disrupt the productivity of the meeting".
The other tips are both very useful and seem like common sense. I think one of the most important things is to make sure everybody is on the same page, know what needs to get done, what everybody expects of each other, etc.
I enjoy reading these articles. I never know if Boevers is passive aggressively telling us to change our ways or just reinforcing what we already know. I feel the past few weeks the frosh class has had quite a few meetings with design partners and rube groups. I feel like we always employ these tactics to a certain extent. Efforts are made but there is room for improvement. I agree with Will that if you are not prepared with a contribution the meeting will not be effective. The most useless meetings i have had the past few weeks is when no one brings anything new to the table and we are stuck in a stale mate.
I think this article has good advice that would be useful for anyone in a meeting enviroment. I agree that every meeting is not necessary for everyone. Attending too many meetings when not being a contributor just wastes time that can be spent being more productive with other things. I would think that most of the information in this article is common sense for most people, but I suppose that since there is an article on it, that may not be the case. So, for those that need meeting etiquette, I think this is a good place to start. Of course you should listen, be courteous, and be on time. Those are be no brainers. It may be harder for some to be prepared and even harder for some to contribute and get involved with the discussion. WIth experience and confidence, the others will hopefully not be far behind.
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